Syndication is a process of gathering information from a range of sources and repackaging the information for access and display at a destination. Syndication is popular with interactive television (iTV) environments. In an iTV environment, a TV user can interact with a broadcast or service being provided on the TV. A well-known iTV syndication service is WebTV. WebTV provides a service through a set-top box such that a user can access content (e.g., a web page) on the Internet or World Wide Web via a remote controller and a browser operating on the TV.
Typically, a web page includes Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) tags and attributes for displaying text and images designed for a web browser on a personal computer. To display a web page for the TV, however, WebTV uses a transcode server that applies a simple, generic or blind mapping of the HTML tags and attributes for the web page and targets it specifically for its own browser provided by its own set-top box. Basically, WebTV corrects elements of the web page for display on the TV. For example, the WebTV transcode server will perform a simple mapping of an object (e.g., changing the object size) to fit on the TV.
Thus, a disadvantage of using WebTV is that the generic mapping or blind transformation process does not account for certain drawbacks of displaying Internet content in the TV environment such as, for example, low-resolution of graphics, lack of support of several web languages, and lack of support for a mouse navigation interface. Another disadvantage of WebTV is that it does not provide for multiple platform use. Instead, WebTV can only be used with its own WebTV set-top box. Furthermore, WebTV does not allow for alteration or modification of content such that new look and feel content can be provided to the user. That is, new media content cannot be inserted along with existing content for display.
Current syndication technologies, which do enable the creation of HTML-enhanced TV content, require providers of the HTML content to re-implement or re-code the HTML content for use on different types of platforms. For example, if HTML content on the Internet is to be provided to a wireless device (e.g., a wireless telephone), the HTML content must be re-coded in a wireless markup language (WML). Such a re-coding process exacts a heavy burden on content providers to have their content accessible by different types of devices.
Current syndication technologies also do not provide a simple manner to navigate, acquire, and convert a given web page for a TV centric environment. Consequently, existing technologies that convert content from one form to another require manual hard coding of the navigation, acquisition, and transformation process. That is, each web page must be coded for the entire system and must be manually maintained and updated. Furthermore, current syndication technologies are not designed to accommodate conversion of the content into new languages for different devices and content formats.